


Christmas on Campus

by flawedamythyst



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-24
Updated: 2008-12-24
Packaged: 2018-10-16 08:45:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10567761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawedamythyst/pseuds/flawedamythyst
Summary: Sam's first Christmas at Stanford.





	

After the first couple of weeks of getting-to-know-you questions, Sam didn't have to evade any outright questions about his family until December. The group of friends that he'd carefully cultivated by being as normal as he could be were gathered in someone's dorm room, drinking beer bought with someone's fake ID, and the conversation turned to going home for the Christmas break.

“Man, I can't wait to sleep in my own bed again,” said Jack, slouching back on the bed he was on. “The dorm beds are like something from a prison.” Sam knew that wasn't true – he'd slept in a prison bed and it was nothing like the dorm beds, which were actually pretty comfy compared to most motel beds, even if they weren't long enough. But then motel beds were never long enough either.

“I just want to eat my Mom's cooking again. I made her promise that she'd make waffles every morning for the first week,” grinned Tony.

“Oh, yeah,” agreed Hannah. “My Mom's meatloaf.” Sam just sat back and listened as everyone listed off a thousand things that they all agreed they missed, and hoped they didn't notice him not joining in, same hope as every time they talked about their childhoods. He didn't want to have to lie, but he wasn't prepared to let slip just how fucked up his past had been either.

“Hey, Sam, what about you?” asked Dawn. “What are you looking forward to seeing most?”

Sam pursed his lips and looked down at his beer. “I'm not going home,” he said, skipping over the part where he didn't have a home to go to.

“You're serious?” asked Hannah in surprise. “It's Christmas!”

Sam shrugged and took a slug of his beer, wishing it was something stronger. “My family's not that big on holidays,” he said. “Besides, they travel a lot for work. I don't know where they're going to be.”

Hannah gazed at him with pity, and Sam winced, pushing down the desire to snap at her that it was fine, he didn't need them anyway, and that even if they did all meet up for Christmas, it would only end with him and Dad yelling at each other with Dean torn between them.

He shrugged instead, and grinned. “I'll just hang out here, and take advantage of the empty dorms to go through all your stuff.”

Jack laughed. “My porn's in the third drawer down,” he said. “Just don't leave it sticky.”

“Euw, gross,” said Hannah with an exaggerated shudder, and Sam laughed at her along with the others. The conversation turned, and Sam let out a silent breath of relief.

Over the next week or so, almost all his friends offered to let him come stay with them for Christmas. He was touched, but turned them all down. Maybe next year, when he'd put some time between himself and the way Dad's voice had been so quiet and steady when he told him that if he went, he wouldn't be able to come back, and the look of broken devastation in Dean's eyes that he'd tried, badly, to hide when he'd driven Sam to the bus station.

He waved them all away with a grin, and spent the time studying, trying to ignore the silence of the mainly empty building. He wasn't the only one who'd stayed, but sometimes it felt like he was the only one left on campus. He sat at his desk, staring out the window, and wondered where Dad and Dean were, what they were hunting, if his absence had left a silent space, or just meant that they could settle into the kind of polished teamwork that he could never seem to master.

On the 27th, there was a small package in his mailbox. It was postmarked from Virginia, but the postcard inside had a picture of Crater Lake on it.

_Sammy,_

_Merry Christmas,_

_Dean._

_PS. You let your hair grow much longer, I'll have to start calling you Rapunzel._

With the card was a gris-gris bag that smelt strongly of vervain, and a handful of pink ribbons. Sam's hand went automatically up to his hair, which he hadn't cut since that last argument with Dad, and then his brain kicked in with what that meant. Dean must have been in Palo Alto, must have seen his hair at some point. He'd been here, close enough to see Sam, and then he'd left without even letting Sam know he was there.

Sam crumpled the card tightly in his hand, pissed beyond belief. Why couldn't Dean have given this to him in person? Or even just knocked on Sam's door and said 'hello' like normal people?

There was no return address, but then Sam wasn't expecting there to be one. He could send something to one of their PO Boxes, or care of Bobby or Pastor Jim, but that almost certainly meant that Dad would know about it, and Sam didn't want that. It felt too much like admitting something he didn't want his Dad to know.

He threw the package in the trash, and sat down at his desk, pulling the closest textbook towards him.

An hour later, he hadn't read more than a paragraph. When everyone else had been listing things they'd missed from home, all he'd been thinking about was Dean. He sighed and took the package out of the garbage can. He smoothed the postcard out and pinned it to the wall above his bed, tucked the gris-gris bag under his pillow, then looked at the ribbons for a long moment before stuffing them in a drawer. Maybe he could give them to Hannah or something.


End file.
